Trying Virtual Reality For Chronic Pain and Anxiety
Summary
TLDRThis video explores the innovative use of virtual reality (VR) for managing chronic pain, anxiety, and related conditions. The host, Zach, meets Celene Tien, the founder of Flowly, to test how VR can help alleviate pain by immersing users in calming, interactive environments. Through biofeedback techniques, users learn to control their breathing and heart rate, which can help manage pain and stress. Zach experiences this firsthand by comparing his pain tolerance during the classic ice bucket challenge with and without VR, showcasing the potential of VR in pain management.
Takeaways
- 🌍 Virtual reality (VR) can transport users to different places and is now being explored for treating chronic pain and anxiety.
- 🧠 People suffering from chronic pain are often willing to try anything to find relief, and VR offers a new way to manage pain.
- 🧊 The ice bucket challenge is used to measure pain tolerance with and without the aid of VR.
- 🏝️ VR apps like Flowly provide relaxing environments (e.g., a beach with aurora lights) to make chronic pain management more pleasant and effective.
- 💨 VR uses biofeedback, where users can control their heart rate and pain response through controlled breathing.
- 📊 Biofeedback helps train the body to reduce pain by controlling heart rate and nervous system activity.
- 📱 Flowly's VR app is accessible, as it runs on smartphones, making pain management more convenient and portable.
- 🙍♀️ Chronic pain disproportionately affects women, and women of color are often underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed, highlighting the need for better accessibility and understanding in healthcare.
- 📉 VR can help users reduce their heart and breathing rates by 15%, teaching techniques for pain and anxiety management even outside of VR sessions.
- 🎮 While VR is not a cure-all, it is a valuable tool in a broader pain management toolkit, giving users control over their own health management.
Q & A
What is the primary focus of the video?
-The video focuses on how virtual reality (VR) is being used as a tool to help manage chronic pain, anxiety, and other mental health conditions.
What experiment does Zach participate in during the video?
-Zach participates in an experiment involving the ice bucket challenge, where he tests how long he can keep his hand in ice water. He later tries it again while using VR to see if it helps him withstand the pain for longer.
Who is Celene Tien, and what is her role in the video?
-Celene Tien is the founder of Flowly, a VR app designed to help manage chronic pain and anxiety. She explains how the app works and guides Zach through the experiment.
How does virtual reality help with chronic pain according to Celene Tien?
-Virtual reality helps by using biofeedback techniques, where users can regulate their heart rate and breathing. This reduces the perception of pain by shifting focus away from the pain and immersing users in a relaxing environment.
What is biofeedback, and how is it used in the VR treatment?
-Biofeedback is a technique that teaches users to control physiological functions like heart rate and breathing. In the VR treatment, users follow breathing guides and monitor their heart rate in real-time to help manage pain and anxiety.
What specific technologies are used in the VR setup?
-The VR setup uses a smartphone-based VR headset, a respiration sensor, a skin conductance sensor, and a heart rate sensor to provide biofeedback. The user’s phone powers the VR experience.
How does VR distract from acute pain during the ice bucket challenge?
-VR helps by engaging the brain in a different activity, such as interacting in a virtual world, which distracts from the physical pain. This effect is explained by the gate control theory, which suggests that pain perception can be altered by redirecting attention.
What improvement did Zach experience after using VR during the ice bucket challenge?
-Zach was able to keep his hand in the ice bucket for 41 seconds during the VR session, compared to 30 seconds in the first attempt without VR. This was a 33% improvement.
How does Flowly’s VR app help with mental health conditions like anxiety and depression?
-Flowly's VR app uses immersive environments and biofeedback to help users manage anxiety and depression by calming the nervous system and improving emotional regulation through breathing and heart rate control.
What demographic is most affected by chronic pain, according to Celene Tien?
-Celene explains that the majority of chronic pain patients are women, particularly between the ages of 30 and 50. Women, especially women of color, are often underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed, leading to prolonged suffering.
Outlines
🌐 Virtual Reality for Pain Management
The video script introduces the concept of using virtual reality (VR) to treat chronic pain and anxiety. The narrator, Zach, meets with Celene Tien, the founder of flowly, to understand how VR can be applied in pain management. They discuss the idea of using VR to distract from pain, with an ice bucket challenge as an example. The script explains that VR can provide a more pleasant experience for chronic pain management by transporting users to serene environments like a beach with aurora lights. The concept of biofeedback is introduced, which involves controlling physiological functions like heart rate and blood pressure to manage pain. The script also humorously describes the process of setting up sensors for biofeedback, including a chest trap respiration sensor and a brain wave sensor.
🎮 VR Games for Pain and Anxiety Relief
The script continues with Zach experiencing an interactive VR film called Pippa's Pan, which is described as visually stunning and immersive. He also tries a VR game called Sugar Cat, where the objective is to catch sweets to feed cats while avoiding poop, all while his hand is submerged in ice water. The script explains the gate control theory, which suggests that VR can help manage acute pain by shifting the focus away from the pain to the virtual environment. The experience is said to be typical, with a 30 to 50% increase in the time one can withstand pain. The discussion then turns to the accessibility of VR technology, with the flowly app using a smartphone-powered headset, making it more accessible than traditional biofeedback setups. The script also touches on the social aspect of chronic pain, noting that women and people of color are often underserved in healthcare and that flowly aims to increase accessibility and awareness.
🧘♂️ The Calming Effects of VR Meditation
In the final paragraph, Zach experiences a calming VR meditation session in a world called Wave World. The session involves following a breathing guide and observing real-time heart rate data. The script discusses the effectiveness of VR in reducing heart rate and breathing rate, with the goal of teaching users to manage their pain and anxiety outside of the VR environment. The video concludes with Zach reflecting on his experience, stating that he believes VR can help with chronic pain and anxiety and that he plans to continue using it. The script also highlights the company's mission to make pain management more accessible and to foster conversations around chronic pain, particularly for women and people of color who are often overlooked in healthcare.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Virtual Reality (VR)
💡Chronic Pain
💡Biofeedback
💡Ice Bucket Challenge
💡Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
💡Gate Control Theory
💡Parasympathetic Nervous System
💡Flowly
💡Skin Conductance Sensor
💡Accessibility in Pain Management
Highlights
Virtual reality is being used as a tool to help treat chronic pain and anxiety.
Flowly, a company founded by Celene Tien, combines VR with biofeedback to help manage pain and anxiety.
During the ice bucket experiment, participants use VR to see if they can endure pain for longer while immersed in a virtual world.
Users of the Flowly VR app can experience different virtual environments, such as a beach with aurora lights, to enhance relaxation.
Breathing exercises within the app are customized to users, and as their breathing improves, the virtual environment reacts positively (e.g., more aurora lights appear).
Biofeedback helps users control their heart rate and blood pressure, which can lead to better pain management.
The app uses one sensor to track heart rate variability, aiming to smooth the user’s heart rate patterns, which indicates improved nervous system health.
VR has been used since the 1980s for pain management, but Flowly makes it more accessible using just a smartphone and a headset.
VR environments, such as playing a game where users catch sweets for a cat, help distract from acute pain, demonstrating a concept called 'gate control theory'.
Studies show that VR can increase pain tolerance by 30% to 50% by shifting focus away from pain stimuli.
Flowly’s mission is to make pain management more accessible, especially for populations underserved by traditional healthcare systems, like women and people of color.
Many chronic pain patients, especially women of color, often see multiple doctors before receiving a diagnosis or proper care.
The app provides users with tools that can be applied in real life, outside of VR sessions, to help manage chronic pain long-term.
Flowly is not a one-size-fits-all solution, but rather part of a larger pain management toolkit.
The app’s goal is to teach users how to reduce their heart rate and breathing rate by 15%, which can help alleviate pain.
Transcripts
- Virtual reality,
an immersive technology that has the power
to transport users anywhere in the world,
or the universe.
But what if I told you that there are
people trying to use virtual reality
to treat chronic pain and anxiety?
What, huh, how, who?
Huh?
But yeah, that's what this video's all about.
So let's dive into chronic pain.
(upbeat music)
When you have chronic pain, you are willing
to try anything to not hurt.
So I've been making a whole bunch of videos
in trying to find what can I do to treat
the chronic pain and chronic illness
that I live with every single day.
So today I am meeting with the founder of flowly,
Celene Tien, to find out how the hell
does this work.
What are you about to do to me?
- Zach, we're about to do the ice bucket challenge.
- I don't want to.
I'm not good with the cold.
We did our little ice bath thing,
and I don't know if you guys noticed,
my hands and my feet were sticking out.
It hurts very quickly.
- And so the idea is you put your hands in the ice bucket,
and we will measure right now your baseline,
which is how long you can keep your hand in the ice bucket.
- Oh, oh, it sucks.
Oh, it sucks so much.
- And then we'll do another version
where you're in virtual reality and see
if it helps you stay in longer.
- I wanna take it out.
I'm gonna take it out.
- All right.
- Oh my god, that was awful.
How long, was that like two minutes?
- No, no, no that was 30 seconds.
- Ah.
- When you think of chronic pain management,
it's not very fun.
Or no one's like, oh, today I wanna chronic pain manage,
you know, so, when you give them the option
of doing it while they're sitting on the beach
with aurora lights above them,
or in another planet,
it makes it a lot more pleasant and effective experience.
- So this is a VR app
that helps with chronic pain, but also what, anxiety?
- Anxiety, depression, issues with sleeping,
and even socialization.
You will be sitting on a beach with aurora lights above you.
- Oh, I'm in a wave world.
Wow.
- And at the same time, you're gonna see
the breathing guide that we customize to each person.
And as you do better and better,
more aurora lights will appear in the sky.
- So my breathing is affecting the world around me?
- Exactly.
- You turned breathing controlling
into a very soothing video game.
- Yeah, exactly,
that's one way to put it, yeah.
- I have heard that you can control your pain response
through breathing.
How the hell is that true?
- We use these mechanisms that, the classic
teaching is called biofeedback,
so that we can actually control our heart rate,
we control our blood pressure.
And what you're doing is kind of training yourself
to control your pain,
because if I can control your heart rate
and soothing breaths,
I to some degree can control the output in my brain.
It says hey, tamp this down.
It's not as bad as what your back is telling me right now,
we can control some of this.
- Strap me up, let's do this.
- First sensor we have here
is a chest trap respiration sensor, and.
- I feel like I'm in Pretty Woman.
- The next sensor here is actually a brain wave sensor.
- Do I look like Professor X right now?
I feel cool.
Biofeedback in its classic form
is pretty inaccessible though.
- Yeah, so traditional biofeedback is really hard to access
because you need a bunch of equipment to set up,
and then you need a clinic that will actually have it.
- So this next one is a skin conductance sensor.
- I do.
- So skin conductance essentially measures the sweat.
The last piece of the puzzle is the heart rate sensor.
So this will clip on your ear here.
- What are you guys talking about?
This getup is totally accessible.
- So there'll be a breathing guide on the screen
that you follow, you'll see your graphs.
We're primarily looking at heart rate
and heart rate variability.
And the more it changes,
the healthier it is for your nervous system,
which is kind of counterintuitive for a lot of people.
- This is a lot for me to process.
- So the height doesn't matter as much,
it's more the shape that we're looking at.
The idea is that you actually want your graph
to kind of look line a smooth sine wave
or kind of like a serpent.
- This doesn't.
- Exactly.
- This is the scariest mountain I've ever seen.
- So in here in the beginning,
this is kind of when you were following the breathing guide
for a moment, this is what it looked like.
- Okay.
- Right now when we were talking,
it's a little more random, a little jagged,
but as you're breathing slowly,
we're starting to get this consistency.
Your heart rate is speeding up as you're inhaling,
and slowing down as you're exhaling.
- And that's the goal?
- That's the goal, yeah.
It means your parasympathetic nervous system
is more activated.
- What made you think to put this into VR?
- VR has been used since the 80s for pain management.
- Really?
- Yeah, I know, isn't that crazy?
- Wait, for people who've never done VR,
maybe they picture ready player one,
maybe they picture a more archaic version.
What is the experience of entering a VR headset?
- When you say ready player one,
I'm thinking like we're gunning up.
- Guns firing, dinosaurs.
- We're battling, yeah, no.
It's like the complete opposite.
- [Zach] This is not flowly.
- No.
- What am I about to do?
- So you're about to do a interactive VR film experience.
It's something called Pippa's Pan.
- Oh, this is so pretty.
I either look so cool or so stupid right now.
Look at us, just three friends touching hands.
I had an acid trip that was totally like this.
I honestly, I have no idea where everyone else is right now.
I am totally lost in this world,
I don't know if the camera's over there,
or over there.
I don't know where you are.
Okay, I wanna do more.
Get me back into that world.
- Should we do Sugar Cat?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- So now you think that me playing this game
is gonna make me able to keep my hand in here longer?
- Studies show that that's the case, so yes.
It's a virtual reality game where
you're going to be catching sweets for,
to feed the cats in the game,
and you wanna make them happy, so the more sweets.
- Of course I wanna make them happy.
- But you also wanna avoid the poop at the same time, so.
- Obviously.
Oh, here we go.
Avoid the poop, get the cake.
Oh, it definitely still hurts.
Come on, gotta feed my kitty cat.
Poop.
Am I past my time yet?
- Yeah, you are.
- I'm really surprised to hear
that it helps with acute pain,
meaning like the severe in that moment pain.
- It's actually something called the gate control theory.
There's a gate in your body between, you know,
where your focus is,
and with VR, we can kind of switch that,
so that instead of focusing on where your pain is,
you're focusing on the virtual reality environment.
- 2000.
- Oh, you leveled up.
- My cats are bigger.
Oh, my cats are so big.
Ah, okay, I don't think I can take this anymore.
I'm taking my hand out.
- [Celine] Take it.
- Ugh, how'd I do?
- All right, so you did 30 seconds last time,
this time you did 41 seconds.
- Whoa, that's quite an improvement.
- Yeah, that's pretty good.
- Like 33%.
- By having my brain distracted, I was able to
withstand a stimulus for longer.
- [Celine] Exactly.
- What percentage increase do most people get
from this kind of experiment?
- What you experienced is pretty typical,
like a 30 to 50% increase in their time,
but this is also very different, right,
from a chronic pain management.
- Yeah.
- This is more of like a fun exhibit of what VR can do
if you have pain in the moment.
What we do is completely focused on teaching
you skills that you can use outside of situations.
- What is the VR tech that you guys use for your app?
- So, we send people a headset, right,
but the actual computer that you know
powers a VR experience is your smartphone.
- No.
- The one that everybody has in their pockets,
they can use.
- This phone right here with the Jigglypuff case?
- Yeah, exactly, with a Pokemon case.
So we've combined what we did outside
with traditional biofeedback where you had
a bunch of sensors.
We made it so it's only on one sensor now,
which is what Julien's holding,
and then that big VR setup you saw.
- [Zach] Just my cellphone, go right in here.
- [Celine] Now it's just your cellphone in there.
- [Zach] Wow.
- And so on flowly we have a bunch of different worlds,
and today we're gonna have you try Wave World.
You are going to follow the breathing guide,
and you're gonna see your real time heart rate.
And, basically what you wanna try to do
is get your body in flow.
- Is it like a video game where it's like nice job?
Keep breathing.
- No, we try to keep it a little more relaxing than that.
- It's like a friendly reminder.
- I'm excited, but I'm gonna be chill.
I'll see you guys later.
- [Computer] Welcome back to Wave World.
- [Zach] Thanks for having me.
- [Computer] Take a moment to
immerse yourself in this world.
- Oh wow, it's beautiful.
- [Computer] We will be collecting your resting HRV
as you do so.
- Okay.
- [Computer] Feel the light touch of the ocean breeze
on your face and arms,
and listen to the waves moving in and out,
in and out.
- Oh it's so soothing.
I can't make jokes during this.
- [Computer] In your own time, begin to inhale
slowly through your nose
and exhale slowly through your nose.
Continue to take slow, smooth breaths.
- Who are the people who the current system
is least accessible to, and is that part
of your guys's mission?
- A huge reason we started this company
is to make pain management more accessible,
but also to increase the conversation around chronic pain.
I think not a lot of people realize this,
but the majority of chronic pain patients are women,
and they're often much younger than most people expect.
So actually in their 30s to 50s.
I mean it ranges, but that's where a lot of them are.
- It's not what people think.
- It's not what people think,
and a lot of times in the healthcare system,
women are the ones who are gaslit by the medical community,
who do not get proper diagnoses or any diagnosis at all.
- I was gaslit about my pain for years,
and I'm a white dude,
like it took me years to get a diagnosis,
and I know that for many women, for many people of color,
it takes their entire lives.
- Most of our members in flowly,
they've seen at least like five to 18 doctors,
and they can't get a diagnosis.
A lot of them are women of color are disproportionately
affected by a lot of autoimmune diseases,
and so they don't get the proper care or education
growing up or in their communities
around how to manage how they feel on a daily basis.
- [Computer] As we near the end of the session today,
follow the air all the way in as you inhale,
and follow the breath all the way out as you exhale.
- Wow, there's another one.
Whoa.
- I'll give you a moment here
to re-acclimate yourself to this world.
- That is the most instantly relaxed I've ever been.
It's like shouldn't operate heavy machinery relaxed.
- [Celine] At the end, you had these really consistent
kind of beautiful curves, I don't know if you noticed that.
- [Zach] Yeah.
- And that's what you're looking for.
- When you say that it's effective,
how effective are we talking?
- Essentially, we're just teaching you
to reduce your heart rate by 15%,
reduce your breathing rate by 15%,
so eventually the goal is that you can do it
even when you're outside of biofeedback sessions,
and I never want people to have the impression
that we're saying, this is a silver bullet
or this is the end all, be all, because.
- There isn't one.
- There isn't one,
and we've worked with enough severe chronic pain patients
to know that everybody needs a toolbox.
Give you your own kit to use.
- Oh wow.
- At home.
- Look, that's me.
That actually does kind of look like me.
- [Celine] Yeah, the resemblance is uncanny.
- It's not too far off.
So, can virtual reality help treat your chronic pain
and anxiety?
In my experience, I think it can help, yeah.
I'm gonna keep doing it, and when this video comes out,
I'll let you know where I'm at with it.
All right, that's the video,
I'm Zach, my body hurts, I'll see you next time.
Blasting off, whoa.
Don't fuck up the green screen.
(upbeat music)
It is a game, but it's a calm game,
and I'm winning.
Ah.
The fuck was that?
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